Disclaimer: I do not own Jane or Kurt or Blindspot. Writing about them is simply the outlet for my obsession.
A/N: I realized that I haven't mentioned lately just how wonderful you guys are for leaving me such kind reviews. Thank you so much! It makes writing this story even more fun than it already is. MonkeyPajamas, you are the Queen of Reviews (as you already know).
She didn't feel like there were quite as many whispers following her down the boardwalk once the towel was secured around her. Granted, there were still a lot of tattoos showing, but not as many. Then again, maybe it was all just in her head. After all, that that was also a distinct possibility. She leaned into Kurt further, pushing it all from her mind. His proximity made it easier to do just that, at least for a few minutes.
By now, the boardwalk was crowded with people, both crossing to the beach with towels, coolers and umbrellas, and those walking along the wide cement strip in front of the long string of hotels that overlooked the water. With so many people crowded together around her, crossing in front of each other at random intervals, she felt that she stuck out less in the ensuing chaos. Therefore, the busy boardwalk was far preferable to her than the less crowded one she'd experienced the day before.
At one point, they heard a loud boom echoing above them. When they looked up in search of the source of the sound, as did most people around them, they spotted a jet that looked far too small and too far away to be making such a loud noise. If either of them had wanted to comment on it, however, they wouldn't have been able to, because all they could hear was the deafening roar of the jet's engine. It was at least ten seconds, until the jet had passed overhead and flown behind the hotels and out of sight, before either of them could hear anything else.
"I don't know how people can get used to that, living here and hearing at all the time," Jane said, shaking her head.
Of course, this comment coming from Jane was amusing, because she was the poster child for the idea that a person could get used to almost anything. After all, the idea that a woman whose memory had been erased, having had a terrorist organization cover her in cryptic puzzle tattoos and deliver her to the FBI as a sleeper agent for their cause could get used to all that and end up living an even somewhat well-adjusted life… well, he was pretty sure that jet noise would be an easier thing to get used to living with.
Kurt just shrugged slightly. "I think most people can get used to most things, given enough time," he replied. She glanced up at him, a puzzled expression on her face, wondering if he was talking about something specific.
Is he talking about… me? she wondered. She didn't ask, and he just smiled at her.
And yet, he thought, here she is beside me, doing just that. She was carrying on with her life the best she could and dealing with the things that went along with it as they came. Because what other choice was there, after all? Either you dealt with it, or you fell apart. Sometimes, all you could do was keep putting one foot in front of the other and go on, and he'd certainly been there – for a good portion of his life. After the past few years, there were times when he was still there, in the "okay but not quite okay" mindset. He imagined that she probably thought she was the only one who felt this way, not having anything with which to compare her life over the past few years. But as he knew from experience, most people felt that way, at least from time to time – even if it wasn't quite to the same extreme.
It didn't seem necessary to bring all that up to her, however, because if she wasn't already thinking about it, then why put it into her mind? So he just smiled at her… looking at her made him smile, so that part was easy.
The walk toward the pier was slow, since no one around them was in a hurry and many of them had children in tow, but yet again, that didn't bother either of them. The point really wasn't the destination, but the fact that they were going there together.
They were walking along the right side of the boardwalk, passing close in front of benches that were spaced at regular intervals, facing the ocean. At one point, as they approached one particular bench, Jane became conscious of a little girl with dark hair and dark eyes who was watching her from a bench as they walked by. She couldn't have been more than four or five years old. The girl was staring at Jane, but not in disgust or shock or any of the other expressions that Jane had become so accustomed to pretending to ignore. No, this little girl was looking at Jane in innocent wonder, almost reverence. Jane smiled at the girl as they slowly walked past her, and the girl broke out into one of the happiest smiles that Jane had ever seen. That alone was enough to keep Jane smiling even after they'd walked past the little girl.
Less than a minute later, Jane and Kurt both heard a voice calling, "Grace!" somewhere faintly behind them over the chaos, but thought nothing of it. There were families with children running around everywhere, and one particular child's name being called didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary. But then suddenly Jane felt a small tug from behind her, as if something was pulling gently on the back of the beach bag on her left shoulder. She stopped walking, pulling Kurt to a stop as well, and as she turned around, he did too.
For a second, she didn't see the source of the tug. Then she looked down and saw that same little girl from the bench, standing there staring up at her, her beautiful brown dark eyes fixed on Jane, the same happy smile on her face. A woman was jogging frantically behind her, and within seconds she was standing behind the girl, trying to catch her breath.
"Grace! You can't just run off like that!" the woman admonished the girl, who seemed not to hear her.
"Mommy, look how pretty," the girl said to her mother, pointing at the ink on Jane's arms.
Jane couldn't help but smile, blushing slightly at the little girl's words. The woman smiled at Jane, and said, "She's going through a phase where she draws on herself. A lot." Holding up her daughter's arm toward Jane as evidence, faded marker was visible all over the girl's skin, the woman shook her head with a smile. "So obviously, your tattoos are fascinating to her. If she had her way, I think she'd look exactly like yours. But she's a little young for that…"
Jane nodded, smiling, feeling as though she wanted to explain that they were far too much for her as well, but knowing it wasn't a simple enough story to condense for a stranger. She satisfied herself with the nod and smile, which would have to do. "I'm sorry…" Jane replied apologetically, though still smiling, "somehow I don't think seeing me is going to help you break her of that."
The other woman chuckled, smiling down at her daughter. "Maybe not," she said, "but you've given me an idea. Maybe if I invest in some temporary tattoos for her, she'll be willing to stop drawing on herself. Not quite that many, of course." It wasn't a criticism, Jane noted, simply an acknowledgement that the number of tattoos on Jane's arms was a little too much for her young daughter.
"For your sake, I hope so," Jane replied. "Good luck." Then, looking down at the little girl, she said, "Grace, you be a good girl. And no more running away from your mom, okay?" The girl nodded up at her, still looking slightly in awe. Jane couldn't help smiling at her, then back up at the woman. "Have a nice day," Jane told her.
"Thanks, you too," the other woman said, smiling, as Jane turned around. Kurt had been watching the exchange in amusement, and now he slipped his arm back around her shoulders, pulling her close once again.
"Wow," Jane sighed, looking up at him. "She was adorable."
"You're good with kids," he observed.
She just shrugged, shaking her head slightly. "I don't really know any. Except Sawyer, of course," she told him matter-of-factly. "I barely talked to that girl... Grace. I just got lucky that she liked the tattoos." The concept that someone had been drawn to her the way Grace had, because of her tattoos, was simply unfathomable to her. "And that little girl yesterday was all about you," she reminded him, which made him chuckle.
"Nonetheless, the times that I've seen you with kids have led me to believe that you are good with kids," he insisted. Suddenly her smile looked slightly more forced, and he wondered if he'd put his foot in his mouth. Eager to get it out, if that was indeed what had just happened, he said, "Who knows, maybe you'll have some one day."
"Me?" she asked, slightly shocked by the idea. "I don't know about that…" Her mind was suddenly spinning wildly, not only because Kurt was the one saying this to her, in such an early, undefined stage of… whatever it was that was happening between them, but because, well, how in the world could he think that she would ever be together enough herself for something like that? She still needed things explained to her, for goodness sake. How could he think that she could be the one doing the explaining to a kid?
"Why not?" he asked. "You're kind, compassionate, smart…"
She leaned back and shoved against him slightly in an attempt to get him to stop. "Stop," she told him. This was embarrassing.
"I'm just saying," he told her sincerely, "that I think you'd be good at it."
All she could do was shake her head. This wasn't exactly a topic she'd ever thought about, and it seemed like a dangerous conversation to be having with him, of all people. Despite how sweet he was being, she desperately wanted to change the subject, so she said simply, "Thanks," hoping he'd leave it at that. Seeing her obvious discomfort, he chuckled and let the subject drop. He'd gotten his point across.
When they reached 15th street, where they'd turned right towards Pacific Avenue to go to the amusement park the day before, they turned left onto the wooden ramp and walked under the large sign that read "Virginia Beach Fishing Pier." There was a plain enough looking restaurant and a few small shops, one of which sold what looked like pretty much the same assortment of souvenirs geared towards tourists that they'd seen in the windows of most of the other souvenir shops. One of them, however, was more unique. Peering inside they saw shelves of items made out of seashells, from the very tiny to the very large. Along the walls were bins and bins of shells of all shapes and sizes as well.
Kurt didn't even need to ask her if she wanted to go in, it was obvious from looking at her face. He pulled his arm reluctantly off of her shoulders and pushed the door open, holding it for her, and she simply smiled at him for a second and walked past him into the store. Within a few seconds he was beside her again, taking her hand as she walked slowly along the shelves of merchandise. The things that people had made out of shells – from tiny figures of sea animals to intricate decoration on large jewelry boxes, wind chimes, picture frames – was astounding. You name it, it seemed to be there.
When they had admired them all, they wandered to the bins of loose sea shells along the wall, Jane stopping to examine each different type. There was a bin brimming with the tiniest shells Kurt had ever seen, to a giant bin that held only a few large conch shells at the far end of the wall, and just about every size and type of shell in between.
A young woman with dark hair wandered over in their direction and greeted them, asking if she could help them with anything. Her accent sounded Eastern European, if Kurt wasn't mistaken, and he imagined that she was probably one of the many international summer employees that came to work in so many different beach towns along the East Coast during the tourist season.
"We're just looking, thank you," Jane replied pleasantly. Then, before the woman had a chance to walk away, she asked her, "Where do all these shells come from? They're certainly not from this beach. Unless someone picked up literally every single one of them." The woman laughed pleasantly. If she had a dollar for every tourist who came into the shop lamenting the lack of good, collectible shells along the beaches of Virginia Beach, she'd have been a rich woman indeed.
"No," she agreed, "they're not from here. I'm not sure where they all come from. I do know that they're real shells, though. I'd imagine that they come from many different places, with so much variety." Jane and Kurt both nodded, looking back and forth at the long wall of shells. It was definitely an impressive selection.
"Let me know if you need any help," the woman said, walking back toward the cash register.
"Here's something you should try," Kurt told Jane after the woman had walked away, steering her back towards the large conch shells at the far end of the wall. He picked up the biggest one from the bin, and held it out to Jane. "Hold this up to your ear."
She looked at him skeptically, confused as to why he'd tell her to do this, but took the shell from him.
"Why? Does the shell have something to say?" she joked.
He just shook his head at her. "Just do it," he told her. "You'll see."
Why not? she thought to herself, and slowly lifted the shell towards her ear. As soon as it was close, she began to hear a familiar whooshing sound. He watched in amusement as she gasped, holding the shell back for a moment to look inside it, then holding it back against her ear and looking at him as if he had performed an amazing magic trick and she wanted to know how.
"It's… it sounds like the ocean," she said, her voice full of wonder. "But…. How?"
"It has something to do with the air flow, and the way it moves through the shell," he replied. "I don't know exactly, but… that's something that's always fun to discover."
"That's… amazing," she said, nodding, and carefully replacing the shell back in the bin.
He took a step closer to her, taking her hands lightly in his. "Sorry, I know that we didn't come down here to have me explain things to you…" There was laughter in his eyes, and he leaned a little closer to her.
She shook her head and rolled her eyes at him, but with a smile. "Don't start," she whispered, her head tilting down slightly as she chuckled, so that he couldn't help but plant a kiss on her forehead before standing up again. He dropped one of her hands so they could walk side by side, and they started toward the door of the shop when something caught Jane's eye, causing her to stop in her tracks and turn towards it. On the wall by the cash register, she suddenly found herself in front of a bin full of brightly colored pieces of… something. She couldn't identify it, but it was beautiful.
Kurt stopped beside her, looking back and forth from the contents of the bin to Jane's face, which was full of wonder. She reached her hand into the sea of what looked like colored rocks, sifting through them gently. As they hit against each other, there was a slight clinking sound.
"That's sea glass," said the dark haired woman from behind the counter. It was only then that Jane looked up and saw the sign above the bin that told her the same thing. "Once upon a time, it was regular glass, then it somehow ended up in the ocean – a lot of it used to be glass bottles, or other trash. It was broken down into pieces and smoothed out by a lot of time being eroded up by the waves, and then eventually, it washed up on a beach somewhere and was picked up. Really, the fact that it resurfaced again at all is pretty amazing. And the fact that it used to be just regular glass… and now look at it."
"It's so beautiful," Jane said in amazement. Then, looking back at the woman at the counter, she asked, "There's none of this on this beach, either, is there?"
"Not that I've ever heard of," the woman told her. "Though there is sea glass on the beach in Norfolk, not far from here," she added. "It doesn't look like this, though," the woman continued. "See how this sea glass is frosted?" Jane nodded, listening closely. "Well, it was in the water for quite a while. Years, probably. The sea glass in Norfolk looks more like… well, just little pieces of glass. It wasn't in the ocean long. Some people don't even think it was in the ocean at all, they just think that the pieces of broken glass somehow ended up in the sand because people don't clean up after themselves."
"What do you think?" Jane asked.
"Well," the woman started slowly, "I've been to that beach. The glass is mixed in with the sand, though most of it is pretty high up on the beach… not really near the water. But then again, they cart in sand from other places, because the beaches in this area erode so quickly, so who knows…?"
Jane nodded, looking slightly disappointed as she peered down at the sea glass in front of her, and running her fingers through it again. There was a paper with some information about sea glass taped on the wall above the bin, and she scanned what was written there. Apparently the most common sea glass color was clear/white, as well as brown and green, and the least common were red, orange and yellow.
"A lot of souvenir shops sell manufactured sea glass," the dark haired woman added. "But this is all real."
Jane was sifting through the sea glass now, as though she was looking for something specific. She let go of Kurt's hand so that she could hold pieces of it in one hand and move them in her palm, and then search the bin some more, with the other. As he watched her, he noticed that she was keeping one of each color as she found them, and discarding the rest.
"Starting a collection?" he asked, stepping closer, so that he was once again looking over her shoulder. This time, however, he kept his arms at his sides, and stood just far enough from her that he wasn't touching her at all.
She could feel him standing behind her, despite the fact that he wasn't touching her. Smiling to herself, she nodded and glanced over her right shoulder, where she could see his face close to hers. "Yeah, why not?" she asked.
"Have you found one of each?" he asked, examining the ones in her hand. She had a white, a green, a blue, a brown, a yellow, a purple, and even an orange.
"I don't think there's a red in here," she replied, "but I think I have just about everything else." He reached a hand into the bin beside her, looking through them carefully, and after several minutes he came to the same conclusion.
"Red is really rare," the woman offered helpfully from the counter, "I know someone found one in there yesterday, but that may have been the last one."
Jane nodded, unconcerned. She had a handful of beautiful sea glass in different shapes and sizes, in seven different colors, and she couldn't get upset about missing one particular color. Closing her hand around them, she turned to face Kurt. Because they were standing in a shop and were not alone, he took half a step back, but his smile made her feel as though she was actually being pulled closer to him instead of getting farther away. Brushing his hand with hers as she turned to walk to the counter, she gave him a slight smile over her shoulder.
She put the seven pieces of sea glass down on the counter carefully, turning them each over in turn as the dark haired woman admired them. "The only thing better is finding them on the beach yourself," the woman told her, "but they're still very nice souvenirs to take home with you."
"They're beautiful," Jane agreed quietly, taking out her money. Kurt stood back a few steps and just watched Jane as she paid for the sea glass, the dark haired woman offering her a small, wooden box to put them in for no extra change. Jane smiled, thanking the woman gratefully and then finally, turned to join Kurt as they walked toward the door.
Outside the shop, Jane stepped to the side of the doorway and stopped, opening the box once again. She stared at the frosted glass, looking slightly mesmerized by them, and Kurt couldn't help but smile at her, stopping a few inches to her right and watching her with interest. Her mind was obviously somewhere else, and he wondered exactly what it was about the sea glass that held such a strong attraction for her. They were beautiful, certainly, but it was obviously more than that. She closed the box again, putting it carefully into the beach bag and then smiled up at him.
"Shall we check out the view?" he asked her, stepping closer and nodding toward the small gate, past which the pier extended out into the water.
"Yes," she said, suddenly smiling again after seeming somewhat lost in thought while staring at her sea glass. Wherever she had gone, she seemed calmer now, a little more at peace. If she wanted to talk about it at some point, he was sure that she would.
They approached the gate and, despite Jane's protests, Kurt paid a few dollars for each of them to pass onto the pier. She pulled her face into an expression of mock annoyance, but couldn't keep it up more than a few seconds when he turned his full intensity smile on her, laying his right hand at the base of her neck, just above the towel that was still wrapped around her.
As soon as his hand was on her skin, the familiar sensation of warmth spread from his hand and out through the rest of her body, making her physically unable to do anything but smile. Damn him, she thought. He knows exactly what he's doing when he does that.
They walked out onto the pier, stopping along the railing to admire the view at the point directly above where the waves were hitting the sand below them. It was a whole different perspective to see it happening from above, rather than in the waves. They were on the right side of the pier, the main part of the beach and most of the tourists behind them, looking out at the shorter end of the beach known as Oceanfront, and the more empty stretch of shore beyond.
The wind was suddenly much stronger than it had been on the shore, though it wasn't as strong as it had been the day before, and both Jane's hair and the ends of her towel began to fly in the breeze, reminding her of when Kurt had held her hair back against her scalp as it had started raining. She blushed slightly at the memory, glad that he wasn't looking directly at her just then.
"Not again!" Jane laughed, looking over her shoulder for Kurt, who was moving behind her to help. He opened the Velcro on the small pocket at the bottom of the leg of this bathing suit, pulling out something small and black that Jane couldn't make out with her hair flying in her face. A few seconds later, he had somehow managed to trap most of her hair, that only seconds before had been flying in every direction, between his hands as he smoothed it along her scalp. The fact that his hands were in her hair again gave her chills, and for a second, she had goosebumps on her skin, despite the warm day. She couldn't see what he was doing, but for a few seconds she felt a gentle pull on the back of her head, and then suddenly, though his hands were suddenly no longer on her, her hair was blissfully contained and out of her face.
He just put my hair in a ponytail? she thought, completely shocked. She spun around to face him, reaching up with her right hand to inspect and yes! It was as she'd thought. He'd just pulled her hair back and wrapped an elastic around it. As she came face to face with him, she found him grinning proudly.
"Where did you…? I didn't know you knew how to…" she stammered, her surprise rendering her temporarily unable to form sentences. She thought that this might be one of the things he'd done in the two years that she'd known him that had shocked her the most. It was also, perhaps, the silliest thing possible to be shocked by, she told herself.
"You're not the only one with hidden talents," he told her, quoting himself from long ago at that same black tie event that she so often thought back to. This time, however, he raised his eyebrows at her playfully, just barely holding back his laughter.
The edges of her towel were still flapping in the wind, threatening to blow away at any moment. He looked down at them, and then at the top edge of the towel, which was still wrapped around her – for the moment. "I don't think there's anything I can do about the towel," he said regretfully. "Is your bathing suit still wet?" She pinched the strap of her bikini top between her index finger and thumb, rubbing them together, and deemed it "dry enough," then repeated the test with the bottom. It wasn't quite as dry, however, with the towel threatening to abandon her in favor of the wild blue yonder at any minute, it seemed smarter not to leave it to chance.
He took the bag from her shoulder, unzipping it and handing her the clothes she'd tucked inside. She stepped into the shorts without a second thought, pulling them up under her towel. T hen, thinking Here we go again, she unfastened the towel and then let him take it from her as she quickly shook her shirt out and lined to up to pull it over her head, pulling it down over herself faster possibly than he'd ever witnessed anyone put on a t-shirt, ever. He frowned at her, taking out his own t-shirt and putting her damp towel inside the bag, adding his own, which had been sitting draped over his shoulders since they'd come out of the water and he'd finished drying off. He pulled on his own t-shirt, then looked down at her intently.
"That was pretty fast," he told her. "You couldn't have gone just a little slower?" He leaned closer to her, his voice lowering so a tone that only she could hear. "You know, for my benefit?" The look she gave him in return was pained for a second, before she rolled her eyes and pretended to punch him in the arm.
"You're terrible," she told him with a groan.
"You're beautiful," he told her in a whisper. Her face flushed as she looked up at him in surprise. "It's true," he said with a shrug, "So you'd better get used to it." Her smile took over her whole face then, and she shook her head at him. "All of it," he added.
"I… I don't know how to get used to this," she said honestly. After all, this – whatever it was between them – was completely outside of her field of experience. "And besides, how can I…? When we get back…" She stopped midsentence, unable to complete her thought, at least not out loud. She bit her lip, her thoughts have no trouble filling in the words that she couldn't manage to say. When we get back, things will have to be different. When we get back, you're my boss again. When we get back, we have to work together all day and be professional… When we get back… She could feel her pulse suddenly racing. When we get back, it can't be like this. It was as simple as that.
She'd been looking at him and smiling one second, and then the next she was staring off into space and frowning worriedly. It didn't take a genius to figure out where her mind had just gone.
"Jane," he said evenly, trying to draw her attention back to him. When she finally looked at him, his expression was serious. He lifted his right hand to her cheek, his eyes not moving from hers. "I love you. No matter what happens when we get back, that will not change." He could see from her face that her emotions were at war inside her, and he could understand why. They'd spent so long dancing around their feelings for each other, and their lack of communication had only led to their not talking about other things, That wasn't to say that the mess with Oscar, with Sandstrom, all of it, had happened because they hadn't talked about their feelings for one another, of course… That would be a gross oversimplification. However, it certainly hadn't helped the situation.
"I know, it took us a long time to get to this point," he said slowly, trying to find the right words. She chuckled, smiling hesitantly. That might have been one of the biggest understatements ever. "But we're here now. And we're not going back. I promise. Okay?"
"Okay," she said quietly. The smile on her face was small but real. Kurt finally let his hand fall from her cheek, then looked down and took her hand. He stroked his thumb across the patterned ink on the back of her left hand, then wrapped her hand in his as they turned and continued walking down the pier. The wind blew this way and that around them, and Jane's hair stayed mostly contained by the elastic that Kurt had pulled it into, with only a few shorter strands escaping from the front.
They reached the end of the pier, where they found an empty bench that faced straight ahead of them, out into the ocean, Another couple had just vacated it, so they sat down before anyone else could. He stretched his arm out behind her on the bench, and she leaned against him, tucking her legs up on the side of her like she'd done in the seat on the Ferris wheel. Had that really only been yesterday?
Tucking the loose strand of hair behind her ear, it reminded her of his miraculous ponytail skills, and made her wonder how he'd known how to do it in the first place. And, come to think of it, why had he even had an elastic in his pocket? This was not normal "guy behavior."
"Where did you learn to do ponytails?" she asked him. "Did you have long hair as a kid?" She grinned at him with the ridiculousness of the thought. Kurt Weller with long hair? No, she was sure that had never happened.
He smiled at her suggestion, but she got the sense that he was forcing it. There was something behind his eyes, something off about his smile, that told her that she'd hit a nerve before he himself had said a word.
"Taylor," he said quietly.
Her mouth suddenly went dry, and she sat up straight, looking at him nervously. Taylor wasn't a topic they ventured to if there was no reason to do so. Though she was partially what had bonded them together early on, she was also what had driven them apart so violently later on. "I'm, I'm sorry…" she began, turning to face him and resting her hand on his arm. She was suddenly afraid that every good thing that had happened this weekend was going to go up in a puff of smoke, that somehow he'd be angry with her for making him think about her… She knew that it wasn't necessarily rational, but she couldn't help it. For a second, fear coursed through her, and her wide eyes reflected it.
But despite her fears, his face didn't darken, didn't fill with color, or rage, or even sadness. He looked at her evenly, even smiled a sad smile, and put his hand on top of where she'd laid hers on his arm. "Jane, it's okay," he said. Last year at this time, thinking about Taylor had been agony. He'd spent countless therapy sessions talking about only Taylor, Taylor and Jane, and every possible permutation that involved Taylor and Jane. Yes, it still stung to think about her, but he'd somehow managed to let go of the rage. She would forever be a sweet, beautiful five year old, and that was how he liked to remember her. The rest of it… well it was just like Jane had said earlier about her own demons. Some days it was easier to let go of it than others.
She looked up at him uncertainly, hoping that she hadn't inadvertently opened something in him that he wanted to remain closed. "Her hair was long, and it was always in her face," he said, looking out at the ocean. She watched him, a worried look on her face, but still said nothing. He'd taken her hand off of his arm, and he now held it in his left hand, sitting on his leg.
"Sarah was older than Taylor, and she knew how to do ponytails, of course, so she showed me, gave me a few elastics for Taylor…" he continued. He was there but he wasn't, partially lost in his memories, but there enough to be able to explain them to Jane. "Though Taylor almost never wanted anything in her hair," he chuckled, probably remembering a particular instance or two. "I tried, though, and sometimes she'd let me. I always got the sense, when she did, that she was just humoring me, though. But that was okay."
Unsure of what, if anything, was the right thing to say, she simply sat speechless, looking at their joined hands and rubbing her thumb against the back of his hand. After a few more minutes, during which he continued to stare out at the ocean, she leaned up and kissed his cheek. "So after last night, you brought my elastic along, just in case?" she asked softly. She didn't really even expect him to answer, but it was worth a try.
"Yeah," he said quietly, "I saw in lying there – in the bathroom, maybe? I don't even remember." Jane couldn't remember where she might have left it either, since she so seldom pulled her hair back. "I just thought, if it was windy today, like yesterday…"
"You're too sweet," she told him, squeezing his hand.
"Can I ask you something?" he asked, suddenly looking directly at her, seeming to have come out of his trance-like state.
"Of course," she replied. They'd long ago agreed to answer just about anything the other could ask honestly. There had already been enough lies between them to last a lifetime.
"The sea glass… Does it," he paused, trying to think of the right words. "Does it remind you of something?" She tilted her head curiously, wondering why he was asking that. "You got this far away look in your eyes when you were looking at it. Not sad, but just… I don't know. I couldn't help but wonder."
She nodded slightly, then reached for the bag, which was sitting on the ground by their feet, with her right hand. Carefully retrieving the small wooden box, she let go of his hand and opened the box to reveal the seven pieces of sea glass, which, after gently opening his right hand and turning it palm side up, she laid out carefully in his hand.
He watched her deliberate movements, sure that she had a reason for what she was doing, though so far she hadn't said a word in answer to his question. She gently gripped his hand, one of her hands on each side of his palm that held the sea glass, looking at it. "I don't remember sea glass, from before," she began quietly. "Which I guess is no surprise, considering how many other things I don't remember." The arm that was draped along the bench behind her dropped down onto her shoulders, his hand squeezing her right shoulder, the one farthest from him.
"I guess… I just like the idea of sea glass," she said. "It used to be one thing, something else, that we'll never know about from looking at it now… and then however it happened, it was basically smashed to pieces. If you'd seen it then, you'd have thought it was gone forever... lost to the world…" She paused, looking back down at the colored glass in his palm. "And yet, here it is. The shape is different, even the color is a little different, but it's still here... It was shattered, and then it turned into something beautiful… It's like," she paused again, and looked back up at him, "it got a second chance." She finally looked up at him, not quite smiling, but not quite frowning, either.
He was surprised at the sudden swell of emotion he felt just from listening to her compare sea glass to, without actually saying so, herself. Looking in her eyes, he now understood exactly why she'd bought it, and exactly why she'd seemed so far away when she looked at it. It was her.
Closing his hand carefully around the pieces, he cupped it carefully so that he could pour them back into the wooden box. Her hands now available to her, she picked it up from beside her and opened it below his hand, so that the pieces of colored glass dropped gently back inside. After she'd leaned down and secured it safely back in their bag, only then did he turn to face her, lean forward and put his arms around her, pulling her close.
"And so did you," he said, leaning his face down against the top of her head, inhaling the scent of her shampoo. "So did we."
